What Causes My Voice to Change?
At puberty, guys’ bodies begin producing a lot of the hormone testosterone (pronounced: tes-tass-tuh-rone), which causes changes in several parts of the body, including the voice. For starters, a guy’s larynx (pronounced: lar-inks), also known as the voice box, grows bigger.
The larynx, which is located in the throat at the top of the trachea (pronounced: tray-kee-ah) or windpipe, is like a hollow tube about 2 inches (5 centimeters) high. The larynx is responsible for creating the sound of your voice.
Stretched across your larynx are two muscles, your vocal cords, which are kind of like rubber bands. When you breathe, your vocal cords relax against the walls of the larynx and completely open to allow air to get in and out of your lungs. When you speak, though, your vocal cords close together by stretching across the larynx. Air from your lungs is then forced out between your vocal cords, causing them to vibrate and produce the tone of your voice. When you lower your voice, your vocal cords are lengthened and relaxed. When you make your voice higher, your vocal cords become shortened and tightened. (You can notice this difference in how they feel as you adjust your speech.)
As your larynx grows, your vocal cords grow longer and thicker. Also, your facial bones begin to grow. Cavities in the sinuses, the nose, and the back of the throat grow bigger, creating more space in the face that gives your voice more room to echo. All of these factors cause your voice to get deeper.
Think of a guitar. When a thin string is plucked, it vibrates and produces a high-sounding tone. When a thicker string is plucked, it sounds much deeper when it vibrates. That’s kind of what happens to your voice. Before your growth spurt, your larynx is relatively small and your vocal cords are relatively thin. So your voice is high and kid-like. But as bones, cartilage, and vocal cords grow, your voice starts to sound like an adult’s.
Along with all the other changes in your body, you might notice that your throat area looks a little different. For guys, when the larynx grows bigger, it tilts to a different angle inside the neck. Part of it sticks out in the part of the neck at the front of the throat and forms the Adam’s apple. For girls, the larynx also grows bigger but not as much as a guy’s. That’s why girls don’t have Adam’s apples.
